


can you feel the magic, all around (pulling me here, drawing you near)

by MatildaSwan



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Cottage Witches, F/F, Femslash February, Hecate Hardbroom/Dimity Drill, Magical Tattoos, a brief aside to, also Hecate is a runaway princess, detailed content warnings within, domestic feels, mild violence, some sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 14:15:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13812912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatildaSwan/pseuds/MatildaSwan
Summary: Hecate was born with magic in her blood. It takes fleeing her home and travelling across kingdoms for her to feel it humming in her veins. There is a woman waiting for her, willing to help Hecate learn and heal and grow, before she has to leave the safety of the forest to fight her own demons for the throne they guard.So Hecate builds a life for herself in the only place she has ever felt at home. Then a pretty pink princess running from royal responsibility finds her way to the cottage at the edge of the woods, and Hecate invites her inside. Invites her into her house, her home.And, in time, into her heart.





	can you feel the magic, all around (pulling me here, drawing you near)

**Author's Note:**

> CW: implied domestic violence re Hecate and her father, threats of serious physical harm/death, magically inflicted injuries + discussions of scarring. references to injured animals. mild gay panic + early adulthood (i.e. 18+) explorations of sexuality. Also, outdoor sex against a tree (20+). Hecate has a lot of brain weasels from lingering trauma and also anxiety. **more discussion of scars and tattoos**. expressions of affection while slightly intoxicated. swimming (naked) in rivers (+ wet dreams [yes it's also a pun]). instances of uncontrolled magic + physical effects of draining magical reserves. witches being in love.
> 
> idk y'all, it's a long fic and it covers a lot of ground. I tried to be thorough but some minor things might have slipped through the cracks, sorry.
> 
> shout out to Arwen for being a beautiful beta for this wildebeest of a fic even tho ur on holidays, much love to Kaz for being glorious and putting up w my bullshizz while I wrote this, and full offence to blackdistraction bc this entire fic is all ur fault <3

Hecate bears the name of Hardbroom and everything that goes with it for a day shy of 16 years.

She spends those years living as a sheltered princess should, hidden away in a high tower to look down on the rest of the world. Living at her father’s beck and call, to be primped and preened and paraded for the people at his behest.

She supposes he loves her, in his own strange way. He thinks he does, at the very least. But she knows finding her mother’s lifeless body in their marriage bed broke him. That there’s something not quite right about this Queenless King who rules armies and lands and its people with a will of iron. That there is something wrong with the man who uses that same will on his only daughter.

But she endures it all because she must; even manages a smile from time to time, because she can. She is her father’s daughter and heir and she will do what is required of her; never mind that all she’s ever wanted is to be left alone.

She manages it for a decade and more. Until the talk of marriage begins.

The first parade of suitors to step into castle sends a chill down her spine, makes her hair stand on edge, makes her teeth itch and her skin burn. She barely remembers their names, as each son of nearby royalty is brought to her attention before shuffling away to their proper place: far away from Hecate where they should stay. But even as their carriages leave the castle and the court returns to just herself and her father and his royal advisors, she cannot breathe easy.

Because she knows more are coming. Knows her father intends for one of them to stay. Knows what her father intends to do with her.

So she fights him, for the first time in her life, because she knows she would rather die than spend the rest of her life married to a man. Confesses as much, standing tall and proud in the middle of her father’s throne room but prepared to beg on bended knee if she must, only to have him look her dead in the eye and promise:

‘That’s exactly what shall happen if you do not marry.’

The world around her spins as her lungs collapse and her chest caves in with white-hot fear where her breath should be.

He stands and her cheeks begin to ache with bruises yet to come; blood rushes in her ears as he turns his attentions to the rest of the room instead.

‘The kingdom needs this union, or it shall perish and the rest of us with it,’ he says, walking right past Hecate to decree that his daughter will wed for the good of the people. The room fills with a chorus of cheers and shouts praising the glory of their realm—shouts that Hecate does not hear as she edges away from the spectacle, too overwhelmed and terrified by the newfound knowledge that no matter what her choices here, she shall die.

So she does the next best thing.

She runs.

*

She crosses the kingdom in seven days, protected by nothing but a cloak draped over her shoulders, a purse of silver hung on her belt, and her mother’s spell book clutched tight in her hands.

The castle is out of her line of sight as she settles to sleep after a day of travel, and sunrise comes with the knowledge that her father must know she has fled. The next day brings an itch to her skin, and by the fourth there are phantom claws tearing at her wrists as her father’s magic gouges into her flesh to keep her close, to draw her back.

She runs faster than ever, forgoing sleep to watch midnight become the fifth day. The sun rises above the mountaintops that border their lands to illuminate the mottled scarring on her arms, made by magic and healed just as fast.

There are guards along the border when she arrives, charged with ripping back the sleeves of every traveller to find their wayward princess. But her spell book—the last thing she has of her mother, save her power and her hair—knows what she needs, and Hecate praises every divine name she learnt before her father banned all magic but his own from the realm. The spell finds her, and her long-suppressed magic, and becomes what she needs to let her pass through the last hurdle keeping her from the freedom she has ached for her whole life.

She keeps her sleeves long as she crosses the next kingdom, despite the heat that burns down from the sun as village after village blur together and her native tongue shifts into languages less and less familiar with each passing day, as she runs and runs and runs and never once looks back.

*

She stops, finally, somewhere so far from home she does not recognise the tavern sign when she sees it. Finally, when something in the air recognises her for what she is, so far from home.

The dirt beneath her feet tickles at her well-worn shoes and up her legs. She breathes deep and feels something tug her forward, through the village to the town square, to leave her standing before a fountain of pure, clear water brimming with silver coins.

For a moment, the gnawing of her stomach moves her hand to plunge into the water _—they threw all this coin away,_ _none of them wanted it,_ she reasons as she thinks of helping herself—but a group of noisy boys rush over and jolt her out of her thoughts.

She watches as they stand beside the foundation, mumble into the palms of their hands with closed eyes before falling silent; the silver catches a sunbeam and almost blinds her before sending ripples across the water. She blinks sunspots out of her eyes as they give thanks in a foreign tongue she cannot begin to understand before racing away.

She looks back at the clear, still well and realises ‘witch’ sounds the same in every language, no matter the syllables.

She feels the magic tug at her chest again, pulling her towards a place she already knows _is war_ m and welcoming and safe, and follows her heart.

Follows it, and the path out of town, towards the dying sunlight, until she finds a cottage nestled at the edge of the forest: timber and thatch with a tiny picket fence around flower beds and vegetable patches in front,tall, vast wilderness sits just behind. A trunk rooted firm by the side of the house spans branches over the length of the roof, and though the limbs look near breaking, hanging low and heavy to shade the garden, Hecate knows they shall never fall. Like she knows this cottage is special, and inside is someone special she is supposed to meet.

She pushes open the gate with shaking hands, trembling as she walks past lavender and violets and foxgloves to stand in front of a green wooden door. Her knock rings out in the clearing; she waits with bated breath till the creak of old, worn hinges grates at her ears.

She cringes, for a second; opens her eyes to see a woman standing a foot in front of her, barefoot and smiling bright, messy raven hair rolling down past her shoulders, her dress hitched up and folded in with a few smudges of dirt still staining her knees, her elbows, her forearms.

‘I wondered when you’d arrive,’ she says, her eyes sparkling with more answers than Hecate has questions. ‘Come in, I was just about to make tea.’

Hecate watches her walk back into the cottage, cluttered and cosy and welcoming, into the kitchen just visible from the front door. Steps over the threshold as the chime of ceramic on wood echoes around the room and feels like she’s finally come home.

*

Hecate knows she’s gifted, has proven time and again in the journey here and since. And she’s desperate to learn, now the power she spent her life suppressing has begun to take on a life of its own. But magic is hard: a drain on her mind, her body, her spirit.

A drain she has no idea how to fix, as both she and Ada realise, when she works herself into the ground and finds herself struck down with the frost before fall has barely begun.

‘You don’t know how to care for yourself,’ Ada scolds gently from the kitchen, bench covered in ingredients while Hecate sleeps in the living room, so she can keep an eye on her while her fever rises.

Hecate burrows deeper into the blankets, as if goosedown and cedar wood could remove the feel of frogspawn and honeycomb still lingering in her mouth. She trusts Ada’s medicines as much as she trusts her magic; that doesn’t mean she needs to like them.

She sniffs. ‘I cared for myself just fine on the way here.’

‘No, Hecate, you survived,’ Ada snaps, ‘Just like you had to in that cage of bricks.’

Hecate flinches, tries not to pout—she knows Ada isn’t mad at her, knows it’s outrage at what it took Hecate to find her way here, to Darkwood and her mother’s legacy—but a lifetime of being at fault takes more than a few months to unlearn, and she tries to hide her fear behind her blanket. But she lets out one tiny sniff and that’s all it takes to draw Ada’s soft footsteps towards the end of Hecate’s makeshift bed. She feels a hand on her knee and pokes her eyes out from the blanket to find Ada smiling kindly down at her.

‘Survival isn’t enough, Hecate, not here. Not if you want to learn. You need to learn how to care.’

Hecate blinks, blanket falling down her nose to bunch over her neck, and feels like this is a test: her first test since coming to Ada and the protective wing she extended along with an offer to teach her the Craft.

She nods, sharply, just once: a silent promise to her teacher. Ada smiles, pats Hecate’s knee and creaks up to her feet, humming gently as she wanders back to the kitchen.

Hecate rolls over, lets Ada’s pottering around lull her to sleep, and quickly drifts off.

She wakes up three days later and eats every piece of food in the house.

*

It’s easier, after that. The long days don’t seem so hard, and nights she can’t find it in her to sleep don’t weigh so heavily on her, now her things live in the newly varnished room at the end of the cottage and she can spend her time studying and settling into a life she’s always wanted.

A life she spends working hard. To make Ada proud, to make _herself_ proud. To become the best that she can be.

To protect herself from any more harm.

And, as she realises one afternoon when she comes across a tiny ball of matted black fur stumbling around the woods, half-starved and far from home and in desperate need of care, to protect others too.

She takes the kitten home, careful not to jostle as she rushes, wracking her brains for all she’s learnt on care for sick animals. She so preoccupied she forgets to tell Ada, forgets to ask for her help as she settles by the comfort of the fire and begins to heal cuts and scrapes before cleaning matted fur until it’s sleek and gleaming dark again. Until she realises her hands are too full of kitten to search for something her charge might be able to eat.

She looks up with a flash of panic to find Ada waiting for her with a cushioned basket and a knowing smile.

‘I wondered when your familiar would find you,’ she muses, brandishing the basket when Hecate just blinks at her. ‘I thought maybe you’d end up with a raven,’ she mumbles as she raids the pantry for supplies. She comes back with ladened arms and adds, ‘They’re flighty creatures, don’t like being rushed.’ Hecate empties her hands and Ada moves to look down at the kitten with a sad smile. ‘Cats aren’t much for hurrying either, but it seems this one needed to make a journey like yours first.’

Hecate looks down at the tiny, tattered kitten in front of her and feels tears burn at her eyes. Thinks of the palace cats that kept her company before her father banned them from her bedroom for the mess he claimed they made. Thinks about Pendall and his sweet purrings and the rare treat of his noble bulk on her bony lap when he finds that more inviting than Ada’s thick thighs. Thinks she would like something like that in her life, something that’s just hers.

She falls asleep with her fingertip just brushing long black fur and hoping Ada is right, that this creature really is hers, that she’s here to stay; wakes at the crack of dawn with a kitten head-butting her forehead, using her now strong, healthy lungs to scream for food, and knows it to be true.

*

Morgana’s strength continues to grow as Hecate studies harder than ever, channelling raw power into practiced strength at a rate that leaves Ada beaming with pride and only a hint of worry. When her familiar has grown enough to begin holding Hecate’s magic, their lessons change to train not just herself but Morgana as well.

It leaves Hecate exhausted, only worsened with the new season and harvest time. So it takes her a few weeks to realise how often Ada is absent from the cottage. Just how much time Ada spends alone in the forest, away from the safety of their home.

At first Hecate worries: she has overstayed her welcome, she is too much of a bother, that Ada has become sick of her. But she knows that Ada has her own demons to battle, her own responsibilities to handle. Knows the debt Ada owes to the people of this land if their less-than-fair leader ever returns from their crusades across the far seas.

She’s pieced it together, over their months together now nearing years: the puzzle that is Ada’s sister and twin power with whom she once governed.

At first Ada turned her past troubles with Agatha into stories to ensure Hecate did not make the same mistakes they did when they were girls, that Ada made when they were grown. But trust has grown with their time together, and Hecate is as much Ada’s confidant and friend as she is student now. And Ada something similar.

There are no secrets in their warm cosy cottage covered in cat fur, and Hecate wouldn’t have it any other way.

She does not begrudge Ada her space—how could she, when Ada never once begrudged Hecate her own—so leaves Ada to her own devices when need be, just as Ada does for her when Hecate disappears into the calm of the woods in search of stillness and peace when the strain of learning becomes too much. When she wanders into the deep, dark forest when she needs—less often now, but for longer, she’s found—through the screech and crackle of the woodland floor towards the solace of the river—calm and quiet even when it’s bristling with life—the same one that beckoned to her the moment she arrived, a mile and more from the cottage.

It’s her favourite part of the forest, her favourite place in the world saving only her home and their garden: a sanctuary she shares with no other, not even Morgana (though she would, if her feline ever wa _nted_ to walk this far into the forest with her).

No one except her.

She’s waiting for Hecate one warm afternoon; Hecate walks out of the woods and sees her, already submerged in the water with the sun beaming down on her, and doesn’t know what to do.

She’s furious, at first, to think another soul has shared her sanctuary, invaded her space without even asking. Till the trees remind her the forest is their space too, that others search for the same things as her.

She remembers to breathe, after that, and wonders if she ought to introduce herself and enjoy the riverside as she intended, or leave the woman to her peace.She’s still deciding when the woman tires of the water and steps back onto the soil of the far side of the river. The shine of her hair catches the sun, turns it golden, and Hecate can’t help looking: at the pale cream skin of her back, at the water flowing down her curves, the shift of her hips as she turns towards the river, the length of her neck as she twists towards the sun, dusky nipples and wet matted hair and—

She flushes, heart racing and skin burning like nothing she’s ever felt before. She turns away from the woman, from the river, and races back towards the safety of her home with her body on fire though she feels no pain.

In fact, she realises when she’s run half a mile back toward home, and when she slows enough to rest against a tree and catch her breath, that she likes it.

She holds the thought till she arrives home, till Ada’s gentle teasing lets it flutter to the back of her mind as she helps Ada with the garden.

‘Well, don’t you look a fright,’ she teases lightly as Hecate joins her in the dirt. ‘Forest find you well today?’

Hecate shrugs, doesn’t know what to say, and Ada smiles. Smiles at her like she _knows_ —but she can’t, surely; how could she know?—keeps smiling as if she doesn’t care.

So, Hecate reasons, neither should she.

But it flutters back, in the darkness of her bedroom. And Hecate lets herself wonder what it might mean. She never had the time before, to wonder—too preoccupied with the running and healing and the Craft for the thought to even occur to her before—but she does now. Wonders what it might be like to to look longer, to do more than look—to touch, to taste, to feel another body under her fingertips, against her lips.

The burn between her legs starts anew.

She reaches down, presses her fingertips where it aches most. Almost gasps, her eyes hooded as she presses her cheek into the pillow, as she chases something she can’t name but wants all the same.

She falls asleep with languid limbs and a bliss-filled smile on her lips, to dream of pretty smiling mouths and enticing, twirling dresses. When she wakes with the phantom of golden curls twirled around her fingers and a smile on her lips, she vows that she is not afraid.

*

In fact, she forgets what fear feels like almost entirely as the months continue and her power grows; as she ties the forces of nature to her heart and stops hearing the tick of the earth and begins to best Ada in duels.

Until Ada’s muffled yells wake her in the middle of the night as a thunderstorm starts to rage. Till the kingdom finds itself with a returned ruler, more mad than before. The, the fear finds her again, thick and sickening on her tongue.

It hangs in the air, sparking and angry, and with it comes the end—the end to these happy years with Ada by her side. She knows it, as Ada does too, though they do not speak of it.

Not till the day Ada leaves.

*

‘You will look after this place, won’t you?’ Ada urges, cloak slung over her shoulders and her magic gathered tight in her chest. The cottage doesn’t feel the same, now Ada’s taken back her magic.

Hecate nods—of course she will, how could Ada ever doubt that?—until the finality of her words settles on her shoulders. ‘But, you’re coming back?’

Ada pauses a moment, then sighs. ‘No,’ she says, and Hecate feels her heart crack in two. ‘I’ll see you again, of that I’m certain. But this cottage isn’t my home anymore.’ It hurts more than it has a right to, until Ada continues, ‘It’s yours, Hecate. You made this place your home, and it’s time you had something of your own. Just like it’s time I did something about this sister of mine.’

The resolve in Ada’s voice cuts through tears Hecate refuses to let fall. 

She isn’t above begging. ‘I can help.’

’I know you can, Hecate. But you won’t; I won’t let you. This isn’t your fight—it’s mine, and I intend to do it alone.’ She reaches forward to cradle Hecate’s cheek against her palm. ‘And I need you here, in case anything happens. This nonsense has gone on long enough, and if I fail, it must fall to you.’

Hecate doesn’t point out that she can take care of this problem more efficiently than Ada, that she has nothing to give Agatha any power over her, like love or loyalty or fleeting false hope that the sisterly bond the two of them once shared means something to both of them and not just Ada. Doesn’t mention Ada is going into this fight already weakened, because Ada’s compassion has never failed her and Hecate knows it won’t start now, even if it all it means is heartbreak and hurting in the end.

Instead, she holds her tongue. Promises to stay with a nod and nothing more. Holds Ada close and lets her go without a word of goodbye before watching her wander off into the wilderness until her shadow is long since faded and Hecate can’t see the trees for tears.

*

A week passes and the air burns with more anger that Hecate thought possible. Morgana refuses to go outside, curls up beside the fire and will not move; ravens take to the sky in droves, diving through the wind towards the heart of the unrest.

Then the ground begins to shake. Keeps shaking. Refuses to stop.

It goes on for three days and four nights. Till the sun rises and the world finally stills and Hecate wakes to feel Ada’s magic in the air. Feels a palm against her cheek, feels a whisper in her ear, feels Ada final farewell: a kiss pressed to her cheek while she sits is an empty room with only Morgana to keep her company.

*

Snow settles on the roof as Hecate tries to make the cottage her own. It is her own, she reminds herself twice a day for weeks on end with not even a raven call from Ada, hoping that if she repeats it enough she’ll start to believe it.

And sure enough, once she removes all the porcelain cats around the house and carefully bundles them up into a box to hide them in Ada’s old room, once the snow starts to melt and the bulbs she planted with the fall begin to bloom, it starts to feel like it might almost be hers.

When her rounds are done, Hecate keeps to herself until called upon by someone in their time of need, spends her evenings studying the Craft and the rest of her time sleeping. But she sets aside time to search out peace and quiet away from the cottage, in other places that put her mind at ease. And her favourite remains the river: always quiet, no matter how full of life, and always devoid of any other human.

Almost always.

Till one afternoon, in the heat of spring—when her thoughts have finally calmed and her skin has pruned—she hears something moving through the undergrowth on the far side of the river. She briefly wonders if a squirrel is about to find themselves in trouble; instead, a woman in a pretty pink dress emerges from the greenery of the forest.

Hecate stares, wide eyed with languid limbs, as a head of golden hair with eyes trained on her feet treads towards the water. The gentle current draws her closer while the woman pulls at the fastening of her dress, pulls it over her head to drop beside the river’s edge, straightens her back and flicks her hair out of her face, looks out over the clearing and screams.

The sound echoes in the clearing as she stumbles backwards, tripping over her feet. Hecate half leaps out of the water, as if she could stop her falling, but quickly sinks back into the river when the woman catches herself, planting her feet firmly back on the ground. 

Her hand flutters to her heart to rise and fall with each gasping breathe she sucks into her chest. She smiles ruefully _, cheeks_ flushed and plainly embarrassed, and lets out a little laugh. ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there.’

 _Clearly,_ Hecate thinks, and doesn’t know what to say.

‘I didn’t know anyone else came here,’ the woman says with a touch of delight in her voice, lips curling in a tiny, pleased smile.

‘I live here.’ 

The woman blinks at her and Hecate stares back. After a few moments the woman politely asks, ‘In the river?’

Hecate sighs lightly at her own folly. ‘No, I mean—nearby,’ she co _rrects._ ‘I come here a lot,’ she tries to explain. ‘It’s quiet,’ she adds, when dark, curious eyes just keep _staring_ at her.

The woman offers her a playful smile. ‘Because forests are so noisy?’

 _What sort of a question is that_? Hecate wonders, and says, ‘Well, yes actually—can’t you hear them?’ A head of blonde hair tips to the side with interest. ‘The animals, in the forest—can’t you hear them running? Or the birds in the trees? The leaves and tree branches and…’ she trails off when the woman shakes her head, apology for her ignorance written all over her face. 

‘No, I can’t,’ she says with a small shrug, and the sadness in her voice needles at Hecate’s heart. ‘I suppose I’ve never really listened though, the carriage always makes an awful racket when I’m away from the castle. And the grounds at home always have people everywhere, though I suppose it’s not really the same at all.’ She looks around the clearing, a shy smile on her lips. ‘It’s why I like coming here so much, it’s so calm after all that noise. Well, usually, anyway,’ she adds wistfully, and Hecate begins to fe _el_ like an intruder in her own forest. But the blonde shakes her head, plasters on a smile that’s just a little too bright, and retreats from the water’s edge. ‘I’ll leave you to enjoy your quiet.’

‘No, don’t—’ Hecate urges, half out of the water with her feet on a slab of submerged rock, the drop falling from the drenched material of her sleeves adding more ripples to the water. ‘I mean, it’s as much mine as anyone else’s,’ she adds as she slinks back into the safety of the river, gently pushing off from the rock shelf and paddling to keep herself steady. ‘You don’t need to leave,’ she assures the other woman, who looks relieved but not entirely comfortable. ‘But I can go, if you’ve prefer to be alone,’ she offers, already paddling back towards the other side of the river.

‘No, I wouldn’t dream of making you leave,’ the blonde says earnestly, hands reaching out as she takes a few steps forward. She stops short, wrings her hands in front of he, and smiles. ‘You were here first, after all.’

Hecate smiles back, small and a little relieved. Treads water and can’t help staring as the woman strips off another layer to leave her bare legged in a thin silk shift that soaks sheer the moment water touches it.

She catches herself before the blonde can, tearing her eyes away from the wet material clinging to strong, creamy thighs as the woman stumbles over the bumps of the river bottom. Turns away to hide her burning cheeks. Hears the splash and gurgle as the woman submerges. Turns back to find her treading water barely foot away.

Their hands brush, sending ripples through the water, and Hecate forgets to breathe.

‘Thank you, for sharing,’ the woman says sweetly.

Hecate just nods, tongue-tied without a clue what to say.

A cacophony from the forest saves her blushes, when something crashing through the undergrowth calls her name.

She twists in the water, eyes drawn to her side of the river, and the call grows louder—loud enough to remove any other thought from her mind. She needs to leave.

‘Sorry, I have to—’ she stammers over her shoulder and kicks herself to the riverbank and the rest of her clothes. She feels curious eyes on her back as she slips into her dress. ‘Someone needs my help,’ she explains, because she feels she ought to, though she’s not sure why, as she fastens her belt. ‘Enjoy the quiet,’ she adds, stumbling towards the tree line.

She takes one last look at the woman in the water, with her her pretty, pink smile and bewildered eyes, and races into the woods.

It’s not till she returns home hours later, sodden with dirt and grime and desperate for a bath, that Hecate realises she never even asked for her name.

*

The townships around the river hold Beltane for the first time in more than a decade. It’s a welcome return to the old ways, Hecate thinks, as the realm begins to feel the magic bleeding back into the soil where it ought to be; made that much sweeter with the lack of villagers who approach Hecate for blessing, though they all recognise her as their new healer and most have stopped wishing for Ada’s return.

She spends the night happy to keep herself company while surrounded by lovers dancing in pairs and trios and groups before slipping away into the night. Till the evening nears midnight and a woman with brown, tightly coiled hair as high as Hecate’s bun and smiling, round cheeks catches her eye. There’s something about her that makes Hecate look again, to find the woman still looking at her with sparkling brown eyes. So when she crosses the field and beckons Hecate forward with a whisper of her name, Hecate follows willingly as they pass the tree line and walk into the forest.

She comes with the bite of bark pressing against her back, her leg kinked over a strong hip holding her upright as Hecate presses her palm against the shadow of what she thinks is a wing spanning over Dimity’s back. She settles on her feet and twists them, pushing her breasts against the shoulder blade of her new-found lover to keep them pressed tight as she enters Dimity with two fingers.

The collar of her dress drapes down to reveal the lines of the wings spanning over her back; tastes the shine of inked stars under her tongue as Dimity comes, crying out into the night.

Hecate rests her forehead against Dimity’s spine to catch her breath. Straightens while Dimity continues to rest her weight against the tree, and moonlight shines over the markings on her back. It makes the ink gleam in the dim light, and Hecate can’t help tracing them with the tips of her fingers.

She doesn’t realise they’re still wet until Dimity shivers. ‘Sorry, I didn’t—’

‘It’s okay, just unexpected,’ Dimity assure her as she starts to twist around.

‘Wait,’ Hecate begs, dry palms pressing gently against her shoulder blades, still mesmerised by the patterning over her back.

Dimity snorts softly, voice lit with laughter as she guesses, ‘I take it you like them?’

Hecate nods, humming slightly, before remembering her words. ‘They’re beautiful,’ she whispers, more reverence in her voice than she expects, before looking away and pulling the collar of the dress up to the neck. She steps away, to put some space between them. To give herself some space.

Dimity leans back against the tree, smirking as she lets her eyes linger. ‘You’ve seen mine…’

Hecate flushes. ‘I don’t have any markings.’ She knows that’s a lie the second she says it, a thumb gliding over the scars on her wrist.

They bother her more and more each day, now Ada isn’t around to calm her, to steady her, to stop her being bitter about everything it took her to get here. They’re a part of her, she’s made her peace with that, but she doesn’t have to be happy about it.

Dimity stops teasing and offers out a hand, face soft and open, waiting to see if Hecate will follow her lead. She does, in the end, thrusting her arm forward and looking away as shame works its way up her throat, hot and thick. She despises that something from so long ago and long since healed still hurts her.

Dimity hovers a hand over the scaring, almost brushing the skin but catches herself at the last moment. She slides Hecate’s sleeve back down to her wrist instead, and looks up with a question in her eyes. ‘You don’t like looking at them, do you?’

It’s not what Hecate expected to hear. She shakes her head, trying her best not to mistake Dimity’s kind, understanding smile for pity. She doesn’t quite manage it.

‘I know someone who can make them go away,’ Dimity offers, and it only makes it worse.

Hecate fights back the urge to snap, because she knows Dimity isn’t trying to pry, doesn’t mean to make Hecate feel weak and pathetic and incapable of handling anything herself. But she’s still not used to receiving help from anyone but Ada, and she doesn’t understand how to do things like this, hasn’t practiced enough.

She has practiced magic, though. Knows that everything has its limits, even power tied into the forces of nature. Knows that the work of this kind of hate cannot be undone.

‘They’re scars, they can’t be healed.’

‘But they can be covered.’

Hecate blinks.

‘I know someone who may be able to help,’ Dimity offers again, softly, sweetly, and Hecate wonders why anyone in the world would use fear for manipulation when kindness works so much better.

*

They meet again, in the middle of a town two villages over, one of the few in the area that Hecate has yet to familiarise herself with. She wonders if she ought to, as they stroll through the market street at each other’s side—near to one another but not quite touching—until she realises Dimity was only ever passing through.

‘I came to visit my cousin,’ she says when Hecate wonders out loud what brought this woman to her part of the country. ‘I’m not staying long.’

Hecate cannot tell if it is relief or sorrow that ripples through her chest—relief from knowing exactly what this is, sorrow for the loss of something more—but supposes it does not really matter. They are both here now.

So she lets herself enjoy the sunshine in a village she does not know, returning the smiles of villagers who do not know who she is and thus have no reason to be wary or afraid, as Dimity takes her home.

Not to her bed, Hecate is surprise to find, but to her cousin. An artist who works with needles and ink on human skin instead of canvas and paper.

‘Mina, this is Hecate,’ Dimity says, gently nudging Hecate forward. ‘The one I was telling you about?’

Hecate feels eyes up and down her body, tries her hardest not to itch under the attention, and offers out her forearms as distraction.

The hairs on the back of her neck stands on end as gentle fingers trace and assess the marring of her skin. She bites back a moan, top lip sneering, and forces herself to breathe out, tension ebbing from her body. She relaxes into the attention as Mina hums and tuts with careful consideration, and almost misses it when they drop her hand.

‘I can work with these,’ Mina says, offering Hecate a reassuring smile. ‘If you know what you’d like?’

‘Vines,’ Hecate replies without pause; she hadn’t given this much thought, and yet she already knows. ‘On one arm, and the night sky on the other.’

Mina nods, like they know exactly what Hecate means, and they set to work.

It doesn’t hurt, not really, not the way she expected it to. It’s not exactly pleasant, but pinpricks on her skin are far from the worst pain she has ever felt, and all she needs do is breathe to let herself go until it ceases to hurt. And she does, to keep her limbs relaxed, while she focuses away from the pain while staying in the present. And though she tries to keep her eyes away from her arms she can’t help looking from time to time, as ink bleeds into scars and her skin colours and shifts and shines to leave vines wrapped around her wrist and a galaxy glittering on her forearm before the sun has set.

She does not stay for dinner, but Dimity does walk her home, to the edge of town and the beginning of the path that leads towards Hecate’s cottage. As far as the pathway that townsfolk know better than to tread, though not all of them really know why.

Hecate does not draw her further, and Dimity goes not offer; they part with a smile and a soft kiss pressed to the apple of Hecate’s cheek, before the two of them go their separate ways and disappear into the dark.

She arrives home again already impatient for her wounds to heal so she may return to work. Casts a healing spell on her skin before she sleeps. Wakes to find her arms in working order and so goes about her business without a thought.

Indeed, she barely thinks about them, so used to _not_ thinking about the marring of her arm under the forever long sleeves of her dresses. Until the vine snaked around her wrist draw her eye one evening, when she catches sight of a now closed bulb peeking from under her sleeve hem in the moonlight streaming in from the kitchen window.

She blinks down at it, certain sure the flower was in full bloom a week ago, and peels back her sleeve. Sees the vines shift and shine and shimmer under the full moon, closed bulbs sleeping with the sun; reaches out a curious finger and feels the hum of her magic taking on a life of its own on her skin. Pulls back her other sleeve and almost sobs, smiling bright and overwhelmed, as the once crescent moon she watched sink into her skin shines as full and bright as the moon outside.

*

She spends more and more time in her garden as the warm weather grows hotter, her newly-bared arms tickling under the sun. She finds she likes it, seeing the way her vines twist and turn towards the light if she stands still long enough, the way they ripple and bloom in the sunshine as she struggles to stop the vegetables from spilling out over Ada’s hip-high fence.

At first she fights the plants as they threaten to sprawl out into the space between clearing and wilderness. Fights to keep their magic hidden and contained. Till she dreams of Ada and her sweet smile as she sits atop a throne of oak like she was born to it. Dreams that her kind words become an order—to let her magic free—a plea—to stop running, stop _hiding_ —Hecate feels in her bones even as she sleeps. And when she wakes with the ghost of Ada’s magic in the air and a raven waiting at her window with the first of many long-awaited letters, she reminds herself she did not run from one cage to make herself another.

So she lets her garden grow: pulls up the pickets so the ground may grow what it wants, provided it nurtures what _she_ wants too. Lets her magic flow free through the earth and the plants, in the soil and on her skin. Lets herself look forward to the days ahead and the life she has built for herself; a life she loves.

But even so, some days leave her tired, not just her visits to the villages and the house calls in times of emergency, but her garden and house as well. And on those nights she retreats back into the forest, far away from the outside world where not even Morgana follows, to walk off the noise and nattering with the crunch of leaves and bubbling of brooks and the peace and solitude of the river.

She arrives by the riverside one evening when even the feel of cloth on her skin itches and irks her, and she strips herself bare and dives head first into the deepest part of the water.

She dips and dives and holds herself underwater until her lungs burn; resurfaces quietly, breathes deep, and finally feels herself calm. Stretches out on her back, soaking in the still and quiet as she floats, while the sun slowly lowers in the sky until dusk draws near.

A splash ripples out through the water.

The sound crashes over Hecate and she panics, thrashing in the water and almost choking while her heart races as she twists and turns in search of the intruder. She stops when she sees a familiar face, one she still has no name for but gives no cause for concern; remembers to breathe, treading water as she tries her hardest to let her panic ebb away.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ the now soggy blonde apologises sheepishly, water rolling away from her bare chest as she draws closer. ‘I called out—you mustn’t have heard me, and I—I’m sorry.’

Hecate shakes her head, her heart slowing, and wonders what she’s supposed to say. ‘It will pass,’ she promises in the end, though her voice is far more curt than she intends. She hates the way it makes the face in front of her fall. ‘I just, need some space.’

The other woman takes it as a dismissal and her face falls further. ‘Well then, I’ll let you get back to your floating,’ she says with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, and swishes away before Hecate has a chance to reply.

She doesn’t leave, however, coming to a stop a few lengths away. Hecate pulls an apology up her throat to sit on the tip of her tongue, only to tangle itself when the woman kicks herself to stretch out onto her back and pert nipples settle above the water’s edge.

Hecate’s eyes widen as red hot wanting leaves her speechless. She bites her tongue and kicks herself away again, thrashing a little harder than necessary as she shimmies a respectful distance, turning her back to tread water and squeezing her eyes. It doesn’t help, with the image playing out against the back of her eyelids, and she turns her face up to the sky and realises it’s almost dusk.

She blinks spots of sunset out of her eyes and feels a change in the water. Feels someone leaving the water and hopes this was always a short dip, that it’s the dark pulling her away. Hopes that she hasn’t scared this woman away. Not that it should matter—no stranger should—but Hecate is curious because, to her knowledge, this is the only other soul who’s ever shared her river.

The question spurs her forward, kicking herself towards the other shore before treading water.

‘Sorry, I—I wanted to,’ she starts, staring at the water while she trends lightly, doing her best not to look up as the woman dresses in the last of the evening light. She hears the swish of a smoothed down skirt and takes her chances, looks up. ‘I’m Hecate.’

‘It’s nice to meet you, Hecate,’ she says, a smile blooming over her face to turn her cheeks rosy red. ‘I’m Pippa. Sorry I couldn’t stay long, but I hope I’ll see you again.

‘I’m sure you will,’ Hecate remarks. ‘It’s not like I’m going anywhere.’

Pippa laughs, high and happy. ‘So you _do_ live in the water!’

‘No, no,’ Hecate stammers with a hand out of the water before she realises that brings more of her above the water line that she likes. ‘I mean I—and if you—I’m just sure we’ll see each other again.’

Hecate meant it as an observation; it comes out like a promise.

One Pippa is happy to accept before she slips away from the clearing to leave Hecate alone by the river bank; a promise she seals with one of her own: a soft, almost whispered, ‘Soon.’

*

She knows she’ll see Pippa again, but takes her assurance as a vague timeline that could mean a year or more (though, if Hecate is honest, she hopes for a few months at most). But she doesn’t expect soon to mean soon, and she certainly doesn’t expect to hear whispers of a pretty pink princess asking after a raven haired nymph in the three towns closest to the river when she next makes her rounds.

And no matter how much she hoped to see her at the river that night, knowing she was near and already looking for her, Hecate never imagined she’d come home to find Pippa sitting on her doorstep.

But that’s exactly what happens.

Hecate gapes, shocked and frankly terrified that someone has encroached on her edge of the woods. The townsfolk never need to look for her here, with wishing wells in the main square tied to her magic. A _nd w_ hile she doesn’t know if it’s out of respect or superstition or inability, she does kno _w that_ none have ever tried to track her to her front door before. Not like she did Ada.

But she knows why _she_ found Ada, knows how this place called to her, and it can’t be the same here. That can’t be what happened here, surely…

The possibility leaves her a little breathless, as jigsaws of this puzzle slowly slot together. And instead of greeting Pippa with a smile and friendly hello, she has to ask, ‘How did you find me?’

Pippa frowns, smile fading from her mouth as she eyes Hecate with confusion. ‘I followed the path,’ she says slowly, and Hecate’s heart starts pounding in her chest.

‘What path?’

‘That one, obviously.’ Pippa points to a desire line that no one would call a path lest they were chasing rabbits, to the glimmer of her own magic trailing from the cottage and out into the earth towards the newest town to fall under her care as its last hedgewitch left for the forgotten city.

Hecate stares at the ground for a few moments, heart racing and mind blank, and swears Morgana stole her tongue. She looks up to find Pippa’s baffled, bewildered face staring back with wide eyes full of questions, and finally finds her voice.

‘I think you’d better come inside.’

*

Hecate busies herself making tea while she rehearses what she has to say, stealing glances at Pippa from the corner of her eye as her guest looks around the cottage with thinly veiled curiosity. The kettle screeches. Pippa takes a seat. Morgana jumps up into the chair just beside her.

Pippa offers out a hand for inspection; Hecate watches with a wary eye as she sets the tea down on the table. But Morgana accepts the hand happily, head butting it gently before stretching her chin in a demand for scritches. Pippa smiles as Morgana purrs loudly; Hecate takes it as a good sign and begins pouring.

‘You would not believe the nonsense I heard while trying to find you,’ Pippa breathes out before Hecate has a chance to speak, giving one last scratch to the top of Morgana’s head before looking up. Hecate offers a weak smile and passes over a mug. ‘The only person who seemed to have a clue was the artist in the middle of town,’ Pippa says with a soft laugh, piling three spoonfuls of honey into her tea and stirring gently. ‘Everyone else was so secretive when I asked about you. What’s with all the cloak and dagger?’ she asks, curious and excitable, cradling her mug while Hecate leaves her own, unsweetened brew, on the table to cool. ‘Are you some sort of runaway?’

Pippa’s voice is light and teasing but it makes Hecate panic anyway. She doesn’t know what to say.

But Pippa’s eyes widen with delight and Hecate is saved from answering when Pippa muses, voice light with laughter, ‘Oh, a long-lost princess who ran from an overbearing father, now waiting for prince from a warring kingdom to make her a queen!’

The idea does little to calm her, too close to the true—something she’s far from ready to share with Pippa (with anyone, truth be told). ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ she lies, and hates how easy it is. Tries to redeem herself with one veiled truth, and adds, ‘And waiting around for a prince would be the last thing I’m likely to do.’

It’s a simple enough statement—Hecate knows more women than not who live their lives for themselves most of all without want for men, though she’s never been sure how many of them want women the way she does—but the admission renders Pippa almost speechless, and Hecate can’t help wondering what things are like in Pippa’s kingdom. She watches Pippa blink slowly at her and worries she shouldn’t have spoken.

Then Pippa smiles like nothing is wrong, and Hecate tries to let herself believe it. Besides, they have more pressing matters to handle at the moment.

‘I’d like to start lessons as soon as possible, but I know you have, ah, _commitments_ elsewhere—’

‘Lessons?’ Pippa cuts her off with a tiny frown.

‘Yes…’

‘In what?’

‘Magic,’ Hecate clarifies, though she doesn’t see why it should be needed. Pippa knows, by now. She must know, surly?

But Pippa stares at her, eyes wide and mouth gaping, and Hecate begins to wonder again; keeps wondering as Pippa looks away from Hecate and down at the table.

‘I, have…magic?’ Pippa mumbles softly, playing with a stray twist of tea on the table. Hecate almost _r_ eaches out to still her hand, as the quiet of the cottage begins to thicken. Then Pippa looks up again, her eyes equal parts hopeful and wary, but all Pippa needs is one tiny nod from Hecate and she begins to shine. ‘I have magic!’ she exclaims, breathless and bright and almost bouncing in her seat. Her hands flap with excitement and she points towards Hecate. ‘And you want to teach me?’

Hecate nods. ‘I have to,’ she explains. It’s her duty, now that Pippa has come looking for her, now that Hecate has finally realised why Pippa found her in the first place; she has no one but herself to blame for taking so long to realise, but it does no one any good to dwell on that particular failing now. ‘Until we find you a teacher more suitable, perhaps someone closer to your home?’

Pippa shakes her head before Hecate finishes her questions. ‘They’ve all left,’ she says, and Hecate frowns. ‘For the forgotten city.’ She pouts for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. ‘Not that any of our casters took much of an interest in me before that, it’s why I never dreamed…’ she trails off, frowning again, before shaking her thoughts away and looking back at Hecate. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway, I want learn with you.’ The air shift as Pippa’s curiosity turns to steel and resolve. ‘When do we start?’

*

It takes Hecate three days to wonder exactly how much time they have together.

Pippa stalls as she stirs her porridge, like she hadn’t given it any thought either. ‘I’m supposed to be surveying the harvest in the next county—my father can’t decide whether to trade here or across the far seas and wanted my thoughts—and I was going to visit my sister after that but I can put her off,’ she thinks out loud. ‘So, they won’t miss me for a month or so?’

Hecate spends the rest of breakfast mulling over how best to use this time before Pippa has to return to the outside world. Because there’s no way Hecate can let her leave the way she is, with the raw crackle of her power—dormant for so long, now itching to be free—twitching and twisting out of Pippa’s control with even the simplest of spells. It is, frankly speaking, terrifying.

They focus on control, which Pippa learns so much faster than Hecate ever did, and by the second week Hecate has begun breathing easy again as Pippa begins to sink into her power—no longer dismissing it as intuition or something that simply cannot be because no one around her every suggested that it might—and holds it close to her heart.

She starts worrying again when she realises Pippa has been rushing forward, studying alone in the dead of night when Hecate has retired to her room to sleep. She wakes in the middle of the night and pads out of her room for water to find Pippa straining her eyes by firelight, a tome opened up on her lap and Morgana curled up by her feet.

‘Do you do this every night?’ Hecate asks glibly, slowly realising why Pippa seems more sluggish this past week than she was when she arrived. Pippa nods shyly. ‘You’ll burn yourself out,’ she warns.

‘But there’s so much to learn!’ comes Pippa’s forceful reply. Hecate sighs, already aching for tomorrow’s sleep.

‘And it will be there in the morning,’ she promises, ushering Pippa up and to bed. Her eyes fall to the pile of books by their feet; she bends down to retrieve one particular tome in the middle of Pippa’s collection. ‘You should start with this one,’ she says, holding out the book towards Pippa. ‘Should you want extra work tomorrow evening before going to sleep at a reasonable hour.’

Pippa smiles, holds the book to her chest, and bids Hecate goodnight with a quick kiss to her cheek. She kisses the same spot, right on the apple of Hecate’s cheek, when she rises the next day—earlier than the day before, later than her first day here—as Hecate makes them both breakfast.

It tingles, and Hecate smiles before shaking herself sensible. She sits down at the table, stomach already growling, and tells Pippa what the day has in store for her in between mouthfuls of berry-sweet porridge.

*

Pippa’s date of departure looms heavy and unwelcome over their heads, once Hecate realises she cannot teach Pippa everything she needs to know before she has to return home. She spends her evenings drawing up sheets and sheets of questions to keep Pippa occupied with witchcraft that can safely be studied without Hecate’s supervision, sets aside text after text to gift to Pippa for the journey home. And a few days before Pippa is due to leave, Hecate finishes her final lesson plan and sends herself off to bed, finally satisfied she has compiled a wealth of knowledge that will keep Pippa’s magic focused and contained until the next season comes, when she is free to leave the castle grounds and return to her studies once again.

Even so, she considers if anything else ought to be added while she works in her garden the next day, while Pippa studies under the shade of the oak tree.

It’s a habit now—for Hecate to work while Pippa studies close by—has been since their first week together. Since Pippa, ever enthusiastic and eager to help, had offered to weed the flowerbeds with her.

Hecate had panicked at the idea of another set of hands near something she’s worked so hard to make just her own, but hadn’t known what to say.

But Pippa understood, before Hecate had found the words, and stepped away from the garden.

‘It’s not selfish to have things you don’t want to share,’ she said softly, ‘You’re allowed to have things just for you.’

Hecate had almost cried.

Since then, Pippa stayed close by without involving herself whenever Hecate hitched up her skirt and set to work in the dirt—lounging under a tree with a book or pottering around the kitchen baking—always in eyesight but never watching over her.

Sometimes Hecate quizzed her when she wandered through the garden on her way back inside, and Pippa always leapt at the chance to learn something new about the plants that Hecate grew, to impress Hecate with her eagerness to learn. Today, however, finds Pippa leant against the thick trunk of that old oak by the side of the house, a book fallen open beside her knees while she naps in the overhanging shade.

Hecate lets her sleep—she earnt it, after all—while she wonders what else Pippa might like to learn. The tree has other ideas, it would seem, when something falls out of the sky and straight into Pippa’s lap.

Pippa wakes with a cry, startled and blinking fast, to look down at a tiny owl nestled in the folded creased of her skirts.

She gathers the ball of fluff in her hands and beckons Hecate, who rushes over while Pippa coos. ‘Oh, you precious thing. What have you done to yourself?’ she wonders out loud as she notices the sluggish wing. ‘Can we help him?’

Hecate sighs. She knows little of avian care—though she’s not without knowledge birds rarely find their way to her and are far from her speciality—and this one is so small, has fallen from so high a tree. If it weren’t for the soft landing and Pippa’s lap he would already be dead, and she worries that is all the future has in store for the ball of feathers in Pippa’s hands.

But she never sneers at the chance to learn, no matter how hard the lesson, and this seems as good a time as any to learn the limits of magic and that all things must die in time. 

‘Bring him inside then,’ she says, already walking back to the house.

Pippa takes charge once inside the cottage, already familiar with how to care for injuries animals without magic—a gift from the court hunters, Hecate is pleased to find; Hecate leaves her to it and sets to scouring tome after tome of Ada’s books while Pippa cares for her new charge.

Pippa bristles with worry and concern for the rest of the day, cradling the owl in his cushioned basket in her lap while she sits beside the fire, and Hecate truly worries what Pippa might be like if she wakes to find her charge still sick, or worse. But he makes it make it through the first night, much to Hecate’s delight, with his wing healing rapidly, much to Pippa’s surprise. But it’s not till Morgana sniffs at the ball of ruffled feathers bef _ore_ leaving well enough alone that Hecate realises what this bird is.

She watches Pippa coo and clap as her familiar stretches out his fully healed wing and realises that no matter how much she has to teach Pippa, Hecate has just as much to learn with her as well.

*

It takes Hecate a month to admit that the house she almost made feel like a home again is missing something, that she misses having someone else in the house, someone to share breakfast with, to converse with and actually get a reply. A month to admit that she misses Pippa.

She’s not the only one, it would seem, with the Morgana mopes around the house, prowling by herself in the dead of night as if searching for something, only to return to the house without a whisper of a reward for herself or her witch. And again, she realises when she arrives in the furthest village and the Inn Keeper pulls her aside to push a letter into her hand: one that shines with the Pentangle family crest.

‘Never gotten mail before,’ he says, half a question, less a statement, and Hecate feels as strange as he does; blesses him for a bountiful harvest as thanks and walks on her way, envelope creasing slightly in her hands.

She hadn’t thought of letter writing, foolish of her, she knows; but it’s been so long since she’s heard from Ada—not that she can blame her, running a peaceful kingdom and overseeing the return of magic to the lands is a time-consuming business—and she’d honestly forgotten people send messages without magic.

It’s not like this hasn’t happened before, she thinks as she races back home at the end of the day, when her work is done; she should have realised Pippa would find a way to contact her, if it was something she truly wanted. And Pippa did want, she finds when she reads the letter than night, curled up beside the fire with one hand in Morgana’s fur: to appraise her of her progress, of the new lessons she’s learnt, of everything she now knows. Hecate smiles, proud as anything; smiles brighter when she reads that Pippa misses her too, before wishing her well.

It takes her three days to draft a response, and in the end it doesn’t even matter. Because an owl appears on her windowsill with another note from Pippa. Dated the day before, this time, and begging for more work.

Hecate frowns, at the rate Pippa has raced through the work she gave her—at the rate she’s raced since she first wrote three weeks ago, before it took the letter two weeks to travel to Hecate’s door—and the appearance of Pippa’s familiar in Hecate’s kitchen without his witch to accompany him. Part of her is proud, that Pippa has trained him so well all on his own, but worries all the same, and adds the care of familiars to the top of her list, to revisit when Pippa returns.

In the meantime, she suggests that Pippa pester the gardeners when she wants something new to learn—there’s no harm in learning how to grow without magic, Hecate can fill in the blanks later—and return to the beginning of her studies, to ensure she is both familiar and well-practiced in everything Hecate gave her to learn.

She finished the letter with a mark of affection and attaches it to Artemis’s leg, hoping her instructions are enough to stem Pippa’s thirst for knowledge (though perhaps it is simply boredom; Hecate doesn’t think it’s an accident that Pippa’s family find excuses to send her across the countries whenever they can) for the time being. Wakes the next day and starts to plan where Pippa might have her own plot, in the garden, to give her something to look forward to: a space, here, all of her own.

*

It’s another two weeks before she arrives in the furthest village to find another letter waiting for her. She reads it by the firelight, again, that night; Morgana curled up in her lap and bursting with pride as Pippa keeps her appraised of the progress she’d made since the first letter.

Her smile falters when Pippa ends the letter with a suggestion that Hecate would be welcome to visit her, if she wanted to, and she’s sure the extra time would be put to good use. She could stay the winter season, as Pippa’s guest, if she wanted.

The paper crumples in her shaking hand as her heart stutters in her chest. She has no desire to step foot in another castle for the rest of her days—it’s why she has yet to visit Ada in the forgotten city although she already knows she is welcome—and panic claws its way up her throat. She does her best to breathe through it, focusing on the crackle of the fire, the calm of Morgana’s purring, the feel of her fur to keep Hecate grounded. Until, at last, the panic subsides, leaving her tired and strained and desperate for sleep.

Hecate wakes the next morning, starts on the first of a thousand replies, and never sends any of them.

The lagging postal system works in her favour; it takes almost a month for Pippa to reach out to her again, and by then Hecate has stopped panicking. Not enough to know what to say, but enough to be able to speak of other topics. For that, she is glad, when Artemis arrives at her bedroom window one sunrise and insists on waking her up: the letter is polite, if a little worried, asking Hecate if she is alright, saying that Pippa hoped she’s hear from her by now. Telling Hecate that Pippa has bothered the gardeners enough to truly irk them, so she started learning the night sky.

Hecate is happy that Pippa has taken the initiate, and says as much in her reply. Fabricates a reason why she has not written, but begins to suspect that taking Pippa more work to focus her mind might be inevitable, if this is how quickly she burns through material. She is faster than Hecate was at her worst, and that worries Hecate.

Artemis is asleep when she finished her reply. Keeps sleeping in the safety of the cottage for the rest of the day, and does not wake till nightfall. And only after scoffing down three mice Morgana caught herself does he returning home again with Hecate letter safely tied to his leg.

She watches him begin to fly, a little uneasy but willing to brave the windy night to get back to his witch, and can’t help wondering if covering the distance herself might not have been such bad idea after all.

And sure enough, when he returns to the cottage two days later, exhausted with the strain of being so far from Pippa that he can barely fly, Hecate knows she needs to accept Pippa invitation, if only to return him safely and impose a proper warning on stretching her familiar too far away from herself. So she packs her bags and dons her coat and sets off into the brisk fall-time air.

*

It takes her a week and more, under the careful but not always useful guidance of Artemis, to find her way across the kingdom and into the next. She takes the scenic route for the last leg, despite the well-worn road that leads directly to the royal city near the border, still wary of guards and people, but most of all because she wants to study the plants in the region, how differently they grow from those at home though only a false barrier away.

She knew the magic in the earth of Ada’s kingdom changed the plants, had done generations ago, but she hadn’t anticipated how quickly her return would change everything. Compared to the lush green and burnt browns and shining, bright flowers of Darkwood, the royal forests surrounding the walled city before Pippa’s home look almost sickly, though Hecate knows they are all in the peak of health.

She thinks she understands why Pippa travels through their land, why she takes her time though the countryside, a little better now: there is no magic to be found here, and Hecate hates the very idea of it.

But it’s why she is barely surprised to feel Pippa’s magic calling her before she catches a glimpse of the stone wall to the city; it must be lonely here, to be the only magical thing around. Hecate might lie alone, but she has magic to keep her company.

She aches to return home the second she hears the noise of the city, the smell of so many in such a small space, and promises herself this will not be a long visit. A week at most.

She sends Artemis on ahead when she finds a tavern that takes the silver of the neighbouring realm. Scoffs down a hot meal, retreats to her room, and promptly falls asleep.

She wakes the next morning to find Pippa sitting at the foot of her bed, and isn’t the least bit surprised.

‘Who let you in,’ she slurs, voice thick with sleep and bleary eyed. Pippa smiles, like she’s keeping a secret, and Hecate glares. Keeps glaring when Pippa says:

‘Come on, get dressed. I’ve got a whole city to show you, and there’s a room waiting for you at the castle afterwards.’

‘No, there’s no need,’ Hecate says, and tries not to beg.

‘Nonsense, you’re my guest,’ Pippa insists, and Hecate knows she’s already lost the fight.

She tries one final tact: ‘But I have to pay—’

‘Already settled. Come on, there so much I want to show you!’

And indeed, Pippa does—sends Hecate’s things back to the castle along with Pippa’s guards, grabs Hecate by the hand, and drags her up and down street after street, from vendor to marketplace and everything in between. And despite the noise and the smell and the constant buffeting fr _om_ people packed into together like sardines, Hecate doesn’t mind at all, not with Pippa’s bright smile and her happy laugh and the feel of her hand pressed warm and soft against her own.

She hadn’t truly realised how much she missed Pippa—not just her presence in Hecate’s life, but _her_ —until she had her back. She missed her friend. She’s so happy to have her back. So when the sun starts to set and Pippa pulls her towards the huge sloping hill towards the castle, Hecate barely even grumbles.

It isn’t till Pippa leaves her in her rooms in the stone fortress Pippa calls home that Hecate remembers just how bad an idea this truly is. She manages it, despite the chill of the walls and the footsteps echoing in the hallway and the smell of captivity, for a while; until she emerges from the bath and walks back into her chambers to finds a present waiting for her with a note from Pippa saying to hurry before dinner is served.

The dress is beautiful, emerald green and vibrant, a high collar and long sleeves and cinched waist. Hecate hates it the moment she fastens the belt. Looks in the mirror, standing tall and royal with her hair still piled atop her head, looking every bit the queen her father wanted her to be, and hates herself.

Because she can’t breathe, lungs starving and shrivelled in her chest; has to get away, limbs shaking and desperate to run. So she does: leaves her books on Pippa’s bed and a note on top—an apology and an explanation, though her thoughts are too jumbled for her manage expressing either of them well—steals a horse from the stables and steals away into the night.

*

It takes her two days to recoup from her mad dash across the kingdom, only getting out of bed to tend to Morgana and the horse she supposes is her own, now that she’s not likely to ever seen Pippa again. Now she’ll never see Pippa again.

She tries to pretend it doesn’t hurt. That it doesn’t really matter if Pippa never forgives her, just so long as Pippa doesn’t hate her. That it wouldn’t mean a thing if Pippa hated her.

It does, she knows it does, but she hasn’t got time for this.

So when she wakes on the third day after arriving back home and can’t stand to stay in bed with her pathetic, morbid thoughts for another moment, she leaves the house intent to get back into old habits. And, she finds when she walks outside to find the horse grazing on her sunflowers, that their newest arrival would like to try something new.

She loads him up and rides the horse down to the village and manages to cover a leg of the river that would normally take three days on foot in a single afternoon instead. Thinks, as she makes her way home, the both of them ladened with supplies and the villagers’s blessings, that she could get used to this.

Coming home to find Pippa on her doorstep is another matter entirely; she’s not sure she’ll ever get used to that.

‘Sorry it took so long, I came as soon as I could,’ Pippa apologises as she rushes forward. She stops herself a foot away from Hecate and her horse, her hands jittering by her side but desperate to reach out. Not furious like Hecate expects, but worried.

‘You didn’t have to.’ Hecate brushes her aside, keeping a wary distance as she sets the horse out to graze in the clearing. The care written all over Pippa’s face is plain as day, even Hecate can see that her back turned, but she cannot fathom _why_?

‘I wanted to,’ Pippa assures her. Hecate itches to turn around. ‘How could I not?’ she adds, and she can’t bear it anymore; turns to find Pippa looking at her as if to say, _Isn’t it obvious?_ ‘I’d never have asked if I thought it would hurt you.’

Hecate opens her mouth, intent on explaining; Pippa steps forwards, reaches out to place a hand on Hecate’s arm, soft and gentle. Hecate looks down, sees her vines twist under Pippa’s touch, blooming under the warmth of her palm, and feels her heart twist as Pippa pleads:

‘No, don’t.’ Hecate closes her mouth, and Pippa smiles at her, a face full of fondness. ‘When you’re ready, I want to hear. But don’t tell me because you think you owe it to me, you don’t. You don’t owe anyone but yourself.’

Hecate nods, pulls Pippa inside, into the safety of the cottage, and tells her anyway. Sits them in front of the fire, Morgana over her feet and Pippa by her side, and tells her everything, in between sobs and sniffles. Until she falls asleep in the crook of Pippa’s neck, feeling at peace for the first time since Ada left.

She wakes up in front of the fire with Pippa curled up around her. Feels light, like she could smile for no reason at all; wonders if this is what belonging feels like as she falls back asleep in the warmth and comfort of her friend’s arms. 

And when Pippa leaves for home on horseback the next day with a promise to return in the spring, Hecate watches her go already wishing she were still near.

*

The frosted months are cold and a little lonely, if Hecate is being honest with herself, but she enjoys the ice etching on her windowpanes and the way her breath mists in the air as she does her rounds. Loves the way the ground sleeps beneath her feet before it prepares for the coming growth. And when the weather warms and Hecate feels Pippa arrive, opens her door to find Pippa standing there with an owl on her shoulder and a leather satchel on her hand and smiling at Hecate with her pretty pink mouth, the waiting was worth it for it feels like no time has passed at all.

She gives Pippa an afternoon to settle back into the cottage. Gives her space while she puts her things back in her room, while Artemis and Morgana get reacquainted, before pulling her outside towards the garden, and the newly tilted, empty plot.

‘What are you planning on planting here?’ Pippa asks, unsure why Hecate seems so excited about bare earth.

‘Anything you like,’ Hecate replies. Pippa frowns. ‘It’s yours,’ she adds, and smiles as Pippa’s eyes widen with glee. She claps her hands over her mouth, giggles as she bounces on her toes, and throws her arms around Hecate. Hecate blinks for a moment, a little shocked but happy to smile at Pippa’s happiness, before returning the hug gently.

Pippa presses a kiss to Hecate’s cheek as she draws away, eyes sparkling with delight. ‘Thank you.’

Hecate nods, a sly smile at the corner of her lips, and leaves Pippa to ponder.

She intends on working beside Pippa during the spring planting, testing her with revision and further study until Hecate is satisfied Pippa has truly leant the fundamentals of the Craft. After that, they can move on. But one afternoon seeing the way Pippa and Artemis interact gives her pause: she taps into his magic without realising it, takes from their shared energy without knowing how to replenish it, drains at his life force, and her own with it, without even knowing.

Hecate knew Pippa had much to learn about familiars; she hadn’t anticipated it would need to be learnt now.

She sends a call to Ada, an urgent plea for help, as she calls Pippa into the cottage for lunch. A raven appears that evening, and Hecate scrawls out the basics of her dilemma while he pecks at bread crumbs and leftover stew, before attaching the note to his leg and sending him on his way.

She wakes the next morning to scratchings at the cottage door; opens it to find a badger scowling at her, a book bound to her back, and rolls her eyes fondly. She unties the book—caked with dirt and still dewy, though she knows the inside remains pristine—thanks the badger for her services with a bowl of earthworms and sends Ada her thanks back on the wind.

She flicks through the book before breakfast, her face a constant grimace as she skims though too many tales of those who push their familiars beyond their limits and are forced to live out their days alone. She prays that she and Morgana never suffer that fate, knows she would rather die than go back to being truly alone, and hope Pippa learns before it is too late.

She’s in a foul mood when Pippa finally rises, honey sweetened porridge already waiting for her beside the now clean tome.

‘What’s this?’ Pippa asks, chipper and bright, and Hecate almost sneers.

‘Read it,’ she order, and takes her breakfast outside, Morgana twisting around her ankles and the smell of fresh rain on the way.

She doesn’t see Pippa again until lunchtime, when her nails are caked in soil from freshly planted seeds. She hears footsteps draw near but does not look up, intent on waiting for Pippa to break the silence. Until the waiting drags on too long.

She looks up to see a tear-stricken Pippa trembling where she stands a few feet away, and drops her tools to the ground.

‘I had no idea,’ Pippa says as Hecate draws near, Artemis not far behind. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispers before choking on a sob as her knees almost give out.

Hecate catches her before she falls, holds her as she cries; waits till the sobbing subsides before she sends Pippa off to bed, tells her sleep off the strain and worry and let Artemis recoup too.

She isn’t the least bit surprised when Morgana follows them to spend the night curled up beside Pippa’s toes, and part of her wishes she knew how to offer that kind of comfort herself.

*

The cottage settles after that, into a cosy sense of alignment: the two of them working side by side, in sync most days, while the ever-strengthen bond between the owl and the pussy cat becomes just another part of the house. The first few weeks pass without much fuss, save for the introduction of various presents their familiars see fit to gift them. Hecate has grown used to finding mice waiting for her on the kitchen floor some mornings; she’s less used to finding still croaking frogs on her pillow and Artemis softly hooting from the window sill.

She tries to appreciate the thought, supposes that’s what counts; thinks it rather sweet that Morgana begins to share her gifts between Hecate and Pippa too, now that Pippa uses the kitchen as much as Hecate does, baking while Hecate is out of the house—a reprieve from study the fills the cottage with the most delicious scents, even if Hecate isn’t much for sweets—before spending her evenings reading in front of the fire. Thinks it’s rather sweet that Pippa beings to drift off with an open book in her lap most evenings, glasses sitting lopsided on her face while Morgana lounges by her side and Artemis explores the nearby night- _time_ forest, as they settle into their own comfortable routine.

Their first proper upset comes when Pippa’s accidentally turns the house to gingerbread.

‘I was just wondering what I should bake today while I was tidying the kitchen, and I though “Wouldn’t the house smell wonderful it were gingerbread” and then I blinked and… _this_ had happened,’ a frantic Pippa explains as she half hangs out the window, while Hecate gapes at the cottage from the front garden. ‘I’m sorry, Hecate, I didn’t mean to, and—’

‘It’s alright, Pippa,’ Hecate promises, though she wonders how long it will take her to right this. ‘You go for a walk, calm yourself down, and I’ll work out how to undo this.’

Pippa nods, looking a little reassured, and scurries away while Hecate makes a mental note to ask Ada to look into instantaneous wish fulfilment, before trying to unpick Pippa’s magic.

It takes Hecate the rest of the day to fix it.

She’s almost ready to recast the cottage back to its original state when Pippa finally returns, fresh from walking to the farthest village and back, looking far more chipper than when she left. Until she sees the state of the house.

’Oh.’ She stumbles slightly as she walks in through the front door. ‘Does this mean we live in a gingerbread house now?’

Hecate snorts. ‘No, Pippa, we’re not going to leave the house like this. We _can’t_ leave the cottage like this—what happens next time it rain?’ she wonders out loud, looking around the cottage before looking back at Pippa. Pippa, who isn’t listening. Pippa, who is picking at bits of the windowsill. Pippa, who brings a chuck of gingerbread up to her nose to sniff, then smiles like she wants to taste it.

‘No, don’t eat that!’ Hecate snaps, reaching out to slap the fragment of frame from Pippa’s hand, never mind that she’s on the other side of the house and well out of arm's reach. ‘That’s our _house_ , Pippa, you can’t _eat_ it.’

Pippa looks chagrin, mumbles her sorries, and puts the bit back where it’s supposed to be. Waits patiently while Hecate casts the reversal spell and sets the house to rights. Offers one last apology before retreating to her bedroom at the far end of the house.

It’s not till Hecate is snuggled into her bed much later night—her warm, cosy, soft and definitely not edible bed—that she wonders how long she’s been thinking of her home as theirs.

*

It’s another month before Pippa asks about where Hecate disappears off to every second day.

‘I’m visiting the villages, you know that.’

‘Yes, of course I do,’ Pippa sighs. ‘I mean, what do you _do_?’

‘It depends on who needs me, and what I’ve been called for.’ Hecate hums, thinking—she doesn’t really do anything, just— ‘Magic,’ she says, after a long pause. ‘When it’s need. Assuming that whatever problem I’ve been called to help with can’t be fixed with simple common sense,’ she says glibly, ‘You would be amazed how many times I’ve been called in to some emergence only to cast the _tiniest_ bit of common sense over the lot of them and it solves itself.’

Pippa smiles. ‘I should come with you!’

Hecate blinks. ‘You need the time to study.’

‘Well, I’ve been thinking about this,’ Pippa starts, and Hecate knows she’s already in over her head. ‘But I learnt transference and we used that to get close to the villages, instead of you walking the whole way—’

‘I _like_ walking,’ Hecate interjects, but it does little to slow Pippa down.

‘—I’d be able to come with you _and_ have enough time to study once we were back home.’

Pippa looks at her with wide, hopeful eyes, and Hecate has to admit it is a sound idea. But it took her years of study under Ada’s careful eye before she was ready for something so complex, and while she knows that Pippa has raced through so much learning in a fraction of the time—unburdened but the weight of long-held scars, itching to devour anything of interest, determined to perfect the Craft with the reverence it requires—Hecate still has her doubts.

‘I’ll consider it,’ she promises, and Pippa beams before burying her nose back in her book, and she does; mulls the idea over for three days, until she sees Pippa dancing around the kitchen while she handles three different spells at once, balancing each of them perfectly without calling on Artemis for aid. After that, she knows Pippa is ready. 

It takes a week of study until Pippa grasps the complexities of moving matter through space. Another week of practice until she can move objects with precision, and another spent perfecting her technique until Hecate is satisfied Pippa can perform transference on herself without ending up upside down in a tree or her arm stuck through the trunk.

Pippa’s first transference is only a few feet, from one side of the clearing in front of the house to the left, but her rematerialisation is fast: instantaneous, in fact, almost fast enough that Hecate would swear she could still see some of Pippa disappearing from where she first stood while already reappearing meters away. She watches Pippa practice, transferring further and further away from the cottage with such quick casting it makes Hecate beam with pride, and wonders if magic might tap into a link between temperament and movement. Wonders if Pippa’s want to travel, to see the world, to meet new people, might hasten her magic, while Hecate’s want to be left alone, far away from the noise of the world, whenever her work for the day ends might slow her movement down.

She pushes her musings to the side, to handle one final hurdle.

‘Witches don’t really do pink,’ she says awkwardly, later that afternoon—standing in Pippa’s doorway while she readies for their first trip to one of the villages in Hecate’s care—though it’s not really what she means.

Pippa smooths down the front of her pale pink dress, ruffling under Hecate’s implication. ‘This one does,’ she replies curtly, chin raise high to stare Hecate down, every bit the royal she still is. Which is the problem: part of Pippa belongs here, and another still belongs to her family’s castle.

‘I know that but—’ Hecate huffs out a sigh, and Pippa purses her lips. ‘You still look like a princess,’ she blurts out, not knowing how else to say it.

Hecate had worn herself ragged for months before she arrived here, stayed in the safety of Ada’s cottage for months more while before she ventured out into the people. After all that, the mark of nobility had long since faded; Pippa’s birth still shines bright, if not in her manner than at least in her wardrobe. She might work like a witch, but her dresses were made by a queen’s seamstress; no matter how matted and twisted the material has become since coming back to the cottage, the fabric was still made to be worn by royalty. The villagers will never believe Pippa is simply another caster, for those who won’t already recognise her; should they think to ask, any lie Hecate could tell them to keep both Pippa’s and her own privacy will dampen their ability to trust. She doesn’t want that—Pippa will move on one day, but Hecate is here to stay; she’s worked hard to build herself a place here, and she wants to keep it—but she doesn’t know how to tell Pippa.

Pippa, who takes Hecate’s words as a compliment, and smiles bright.

‘I mean, you don’t look like someone who…’ Hecate trails off, still trying to make herself heard. ‘You don’t look like me,’ she finally settles on, and hopes that’s enough.

‘Well, then I should borrow something from you,’ Pippa says brightly, as if it’s obvious.

And it really is that simple.

‘No one will recognise me,’ Pippa explains with as she twirls in the middle of Hecate’s bedroom, her curves wrapped in deep purple such a vast difference from the light pinks and puce and peaches of the courtly wardrobe she brought with her.

‘No, they won’t,’ Hecate mumbles, distracted by how naturally Pippa seems to fit into her clothes, how comfortable Pippa looks in Hecate’s things, how at home Pippa is in her bedroom, before snapping herself out of it. ‘We have work to do,’ she reminds them both, rolling her shoulders back and preparing for the afternoon ahead.

Pippa stops dancing and nods, solemn and serious once again; follows Hecate out of her room, out of the cottage, and into the village.

*

She was wrong, about Pippa not belonging; she realises as soon as she sees her work.

Pippa is calm, comforting, gentle; all the things Hecate is, by nature _, not._ Pippa does not need to make up for all the things she lacks; she can let her actions speak for themselves. And Pippa makes friends, so easily, and Hecate can’t help the spike of jealousy—try as she might to pretend it’s envy—and how easily, how quickly, everyone gets on with Pippa.

She isn’t surprised when Pippa starts spending her evening away from the cottage.

Hecate knows it’s hard, to live in such close quarters with another, to share almost every part of one’s life. And now that Pippa joins her during her rounds as well, they have even less time to themselves. With Ada, they both had space away from each other, but with Pippa, their safe havens are the same: the river, the garden, curled up in front of the fire. So Hecate can’t really blame Pippa, for wanting a space of her own, and something that she doesn’t have to share with Hecate.

That doesn’t make it hurt any less.

But even that fades, after one warn night, when Pippa wanders home nearing midnight, smiling bright and a little hazy as she walks through the front door. When she practically throws herself into Hecate’s arms when she rises from her chair to finally head off to bed now Pippa is home. When Pippa mumbles into Hecate’s shoulder just how happy she is, that she can wander into the village and spend an evening listening to stories she’d never have the chance to know, never have the chance to hear if she weren’t here with Hecate.

‘You’ve opened up so many new worlds to me, Hecate. Thank you,’ she says with so much gratitude it makes Hecate’s heart hurt. ‘But I’m glad I met you, most of all,’ Pippa admits, holding onto to Hecate’s elbows and smiling bright.

After that, Hecate can’t bring herself to be slightest bit angry about anything at all.

She sits Pippa down on the living room rug, in front of the pillows that has accumulated over the past weeks—since Pippa learnt to sew and insisted on putting the excess material from her dresses to good use—and goes to fetch a glass of water. Presses it into Pippa’s waiting hands, settling down beside her.

The soft light of the fire catches the ink on her arms as she reaches over. The new moon shines dark above her wrist.

A tiny hum falls from Pippa’s mouth and she puts the mug to one side, catching Hecate’s hand as she moves it away. Pulls it towards her as she studies Hecate’s tattoos, her fingertips gently tracing vine edges.

‘I’ve always wondered,’ she starts, and the feel of fingers on scarred flesh sends shivers up Hecate’s spine. She almost moves her arms away from Pippa’s curious hand. Almost. ‘Who did these?’

Hecate smiles. ‘An artist, in the far village, Mina. I’m surprised you haven't met them yet?’

‘Oh, I have!’ Pippa says brightly, looking up into Hecate’s eyes. Her palm curls around the back of Hecate’s wrist. ‘They’re the one who sent me here,’ she remembers, going a little misty eyed as she realises, ‘They’re the reason I found you.’

Hecate stiffens, pulls her arm away; hols it higher to look at the work with interest. She hadn’t thought about it till now, but without these, Pippa might never have found her. At least not the way she did; Pippa not finding her at all doesn’t bear thinking about.

‘I suppose that’s true,’ she finally mutters, mostly to herself, before dropping her arm back into her lap. She looks over at Pippa, intend on ushering to her bed, only to find her already asleep against the pile of pillows. Hecate smiles, drapes a crochet blanket over Pippa, and wishes her goodnight; checking the fire one last time before retreating to her room.

*

Hecate isn’t surprised when Pippa mentions Mina’s name later that week, and she recounts her evening relaxing in the farthest village. Isn’t surprised that the two seem to be fast friends. 

‘Their work is _beautiful_ ,’ Pippa gushes as Hecate pours them both tea, sitting down beside Pippa. ‘Almost everyone in the village has a marking, and so many travel just for their art—some even come from beyond the borders, can you imagine?’

Hecate hums gently, cradling her mug in her hands, and sips her tea. She doesn’t point out Pippa has done much the same for the Craft. Contents herself with listening as Pippa gushes about how talented, how _brilliant_ her new friend and their work is—one eye on other on the stars shining on her wrist and the other on Pippa’s bright, happy face.

She is a little surprised when Pippa begs off from study the next week. When she asks, for the first time, to take the day off.

‘I have some errands to run,’ is all she’ll say when Hecate raises a curious brow. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Of course not,’ Hecate replies, and sees no reason to say no. Not that it really matters, Hecate isn’t Pippa’s keeper, and she can do what she likes.

Pippa beams when Hecate reminds her as much, pressing a quick kiss to Hecate’s cheek before dashing away, towards the furthest village trail.

And when she comes back in the early evening with her skin as bare as it was when she left, Hecate is very surprised. Especially as Pippa seems to hold herself differently—in the angle of her shoulders, the jut of her chin—though Hecate cannot pinpoint why, when she’s no different from that morning.

But Pippa doesn’t say where she was, and Hecate doesn’t ask. Just smiles to welcome her home before bidding her goodnight; goes to bed, and thinks no more about it.

*

Summer nights are perfect for stargazing, Hecate realises. She never really noticed before, always called to the night sky to gaze when it was needed, irrespective of temperature. But with the garden in full bloom and a cacophony of new life teaming throughout the forest, the warm, clear nights really are perfect.

She spends many them lying beside Pippa—now she’s home most evenings, now she seems to have found whatever she was searching for with her trips to the villages—looking up at the night sky, stretched out a thick picnic blanket big enough for two. Big enough, that is, if the two are prepared to sit close enough that their shoulders bump, so that their fingers brush whenever they sit up.

Not that Hecate spares much thought for that fact, of course, too preoccupied is she with finally testing Pippa’s autodidact knowledge of the stars. Of course she doesn’t notice how close Pippa is, lying beside her with their bodies almost flush and she could swear she feels the heat of Pippa’s hip next to hers, as she poses question after question about constellations and star clusters and the meaning of every planet in the sky.

Venus is in the Lioness when Pippa asks, ‘What sign were you born under?’

It’s an innocent question, a simple question, but Hecate chokes on her tongue when she tries to reply. She’d almost forgotten about her birthday; would have certainly forgotten if it the cycle of the stars weren’t as important as the sun and the seasons when grounding a witch to the fundamental forces of nature. It’s the only reason she remembers the date at all, now that Ada isn’t here to offer her a new book and a slice of carrot cake—Hecate’s favourite of a food group she normally can’t stand (and if the kitchen smells more like baking than ever before because Pippa lives here now, and Hecate has begun to grow a tolerate for sweet things as a result, there’s nothing to else to think of the matter at all)—it barely seems important enough to remember.

She does though, and Pippa waits patiently, _s_ taring up at the stars, until Hecate tells her, ‘The Scorpion.’

Pippa turns her face to Hecate, eyes sparkling while she smiles in the moonlight. ‘I might have known,’ she says, voice light with laughter, though Hecate cannot see the joke. Then Pippa frown just a touch, as if considering: ‘Not so far away, then.’

Hecate snorts. ‘No birthday ever is,’ she thinks out loud. _A year is only so long_ , she keeps to herself, it’s hardly an eon.

But Pippa hums like it matters as she turns her face away to look up at the moon, as if committing that fact to memory, though Hecate has no idea why her birthday would be important to Pippa.

*

The days are long and hot and while wonderful for their garden beds, Hecate isn’t surprised when Pippa begs off one day, begs Hecate to take the afternoon off too, and enjoy the reprieve of the river.

Hecate looks at her soil-crusted hands, then Morgana’s lazy slumber underneath the oak tree, and can’t think of a reason why not.

‘Lead the way,’ she relents, and Pippa almost squeaks with joy, bouncing on her toes and clapping with delight.

The forest welcomes her back _, as_ it always does, and she can feel it calling Pippa as well. Hecate smiles as she brings up the rear, as Pippa thumps and jumps over branches and fallen logs and overgrown desire lines, until they come to the clearing where they both met.

‘Come on slowpoke!’ Pippa calls as she strips off her dress and races to the water’s edge, to the deepest part of the river, and dives right in. She emerges, long _long_ moments later, once Hecate has drawn near the riverbank, bursting from beneath the water and back out into the world with a huge gasp and a dramatic flick of her hair that sends droplets flying over the surface and ripples radiate out.

Pippa laughs, delighted and bright, as she dives under and out of the water again, while Hecate pulls off her tunic and hangs it on a nearby tree branch. She does the same for Pippa’s haphazardly thrown shift, before walking back to the water and slowly wading in.

Pippa stalks over to her, splashing lightly at her, trying to hurry Hecate as she takes her sweet time.

‘Stop that,’ Hecate urges, and Pippa just pouts.

‘Or you’ll what?’ she challenges, her feet finding a rock slab beneath the water and standing tall. Hecate is about to snark back when she notices the colour on Pippa’s chest, below her breast-band, and she pauses—worried, for a second, that Pippa is hurt, the colour a bruise from an injury Hecate had no idea about—until she draws a little closer and makes out a definitive shape from the colouring, which starts above Pippa’s stomach and spreads out over her rib cage before disappearing under the sodden material of her bra.

Hecate frowns, tilts her head and squints her eyes, as if to get a better look, before looking up to see Pippa’s bemused face.

‘Do you like it?’ Pippa prods before Hecate can ask, and Hecate shrugs.

Pippa looks at her expectantly before Hecate points out, ‘I can’t see it properly.’

Pippa looks down at the wet material clinging to her skin, obscuring the view. She shakes her head at herself before untying her bra and stripping it off to reveal the artwork underneath

A downward violet begins over Pippa’s heart, unfurling over her chest and surrounded by delicate, twisted leaves that shine emerald green. It takes Hecate a few moments to see the base of the bloom is the beak of an owl, becoming a flower in bloom and then delicate, intricate linework that makes it seem as if Pippa’s ribs are covered in jewels.

Hecate stares, mouth gaping slightly, and raises her hand without thinking. She reaches out, about to trace a fingertip over the petal lines when she realises: this is Pippa’s chest. She blinks herself sensible and keeps her hands to herself. Looks up at Pippa, apology in her eyes and a blushing burning on her cheeks, but Pippa doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Pippa says, staring down at the art again, and Hecate lets herself look. Looks at the purples and pinks and reds shining bright against cream skin, at the gentle hum of magic twisting the design ever so slightly, darkening the shades and almost shifting the hues before Hecate’s very eyes, and agrees wholeheartedly.

‘It is,’ she says, almost a whisper, ‘Very beautiful.’

She tears her eyes away, offering a beaming Pippa a reassuring smile, before diving under the water. Holds herself underwater as she tries to shake the tiny voice in the back of her mind wondering if she means the tattoo or the body on which it’s displayed.

*

She can’t ignore it, after that. Can’t ignore the growing closeness she’s been craving from Pippa, the wanting that’s been pulling Hecate towards her friend. Not after she dreams of Pippa—of the two of them—wet and near and naked in the river. Dreams of them diving and dancing and drawing each other close beneath the water: Pippa’s hand in hers, her hand on Pippa’s waist, their legs tangling together as she breathes out her last lungful of air—

She wakes with a strangled gasp, sucking air into her starving lungs, and tries to shake herself sensible. Gets up, gets a glass of water, gets back into bed remembering just faintest traces of her dream.

Get up the next morning, with the sun risen and Pippa already eating, and gets on with her day as if nothing has happened. As if nothing has changed. Nothing at all.

*

It’s good, that their time together ends abruptly, Hecate tries to convince herself. That space apart is the best way to get rid of her ridiculous newfound feelings before they get in the way of her duties. That Pippa needs to leave before someone gets hurt.

But still, this isn’t what she planned, when a letter announcing Pippa’s impending aunt-hood demands she leave the cottage a fortnight earlier than expected, to be present for the birth of her sister’s first child. It’s a happy reason, but it doesn’t leave either of them with a lot of time to plan.

Hecate says as much, leaning against the doorframe of Pippa’s room. She watches Pippa pack, the letter sitting at the end of her bed; Hecate stares at it, trying to convince herself that this is a good thing.

The snap of a clasp pulls her from her thoughts. She tears her eyes away from the foot of Pippa’s bed to find her friend looking wistfully around the room, a sad smiling sitting at the corner of her lips. 

‘I’ll miss this place when I’m gone,’ she admits, though they both know it’s not forever, that Pippa will be back when the seasons turn warm. She looks straight at Hecate, ‘I’ll miss you.’

Hecate ducks her head, nibbles on her bottom lips. Gets her racing heart back under control and looks up to give Pippa a small, reassuming smile. ‘I’ll write. Provided you don’t sent Artemis on any long-distance journeys.’

‘I won’t, I promise,’ Pippa says with a laugh, standing as she drags her case off the bed to hang heavy beside her, walking towards the doorway. And Hecate. ‘But you really will write?’ she asks, as Hecate stands in her doorway.

‘Of course,’ she says, stepping to one side so Pippa may pass. ‘Besides, I have to send you things to keep you occupied,’ she reminds her as they walk through the cottage.

Pippa stops to say goodbye to Morgana. Hecate waits for her by the front door.

They transfers together, into the forest by the road where Pippa’s carriage awaits. Hecate can feel the horse she once stole among those fastened to the carriage and smiles. She turns to tell Pippa only to find her looking sadly at the entourage. She doesn’t know why Pippa would be sad, not with such good things waiting for her return.

‘Well, safe travels,’ she prompts, and Pippa looks towards her one last time. ‘May you find your sister and her family well.’

Pippa perks up, the corners of her mouth upturning at the reminder of an impending royal birth. ‘Thank you, for everything.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Hecate says, her final goodbye. ‘Now don’t keep them waiting.’

Pippa chuckles, tightens her grip on her bag, and rolls her shoulders back. ‘Goodbye. And stay safe,’ she wishes, before pressing a quick, firm kiss to Hecate’s cheek and striding away without another word.

Hecate can’t bear to watch her leave. Transfers home, walks back into her cottage, and she can’t help noticing how empty it already feels. She sits into front of the fire, Morgana in her lap, and tries to tell herself things are better this way.

*

Hecate is sure she explained the dangers of long distance travel when they first studied transference. Sure she made Pippa aware of why witches walk as often as not despite having other options. Which is why she can’t believe her eyes when Pippa appears in the middle of the living room the night before her birthday.

Hecate can smell the magic on her, taste the crackle of so many spells cast in quick succession as Pippa pushed herself to travel as far as she could again and again until she finally arrived at her destination, right inside their cottage.

Hecate stands up, confused, worried, _terrified_ —she’s never known power to be so foolhardy, not even her own—wondering what could have persuaded Pippa to be so reckless. She can barely contain her anger as she asks—though anger isn’t the right word for it, she knows that; knows that fear and concern and a sense of helpless rest behind her misplaced fury—and hasn’t a clue what to say when Pippa simply replies:

‘I wanted to see you. Happy birthday,’ she adds, holding out a bright coloured rectangle as her eyes glaze over.

Hecate takes the gift, mouth gaping and tongue tied, and watches Pippa faint.

*

She doesn’t wake for three days.

Artemis keeps a close eye on her from his perch on the windowsill when he’s not sleeping too, overlooking Pippa’s torment form while the both of them regather their power. Morgana curls up by Pippa’s side, purring soft and steady, as Hecate spends her birthday fretting. She flitters in and out of Pippa’s bedroom, pacing around the cottage like a worried cat while she waits for raven after raven from Ada talking her through Pippa’s recovery. Talking Hecate down from her all-consuming panic.

‘She just has to sleep, she’ll be fine,’ were Ada’s first words, replying to Hecate’s jumbled pleas for help to care for her foolish, feckless, _reckless_ student who just went and drained her life force to bring Hecate a birthday present, of all things. ‘If there is any lasting damage, we won’t know until she wakes,’ Ada had added later, once she’d detailed how to care Pippa through this. ‘And if she has created a scar on her magic, she’ll just have to relearn her limits. It’s going to be fine, Hecate. Pippa is going to be fine.’

Hecate remembers those words so often while Pippa sleeps that she swears she can hear them in Ada’s voice; wakes up the next morning after a fitful few hours of light dozing in a chair beside Pippa’s bed and swears she can hear Pippa’s voice saying much the same: ‘I’ll be fine, Hecate. I just need to sleep, and when I wake, I’ll be just fine.’

If it weren't for those voices in her ear, Hecate would surely have gone mad during those three days, waiting for Pippa to open her eyes.

But she does, eventually, the day before Samhain. Opens her eyes and yawns wide and sits up in bed, Morgana moving to sit in her lap, smiling brightly at Hecate like she hasn’t a care in the world.

That’s irksome enough, but it’s Pippa saying, ‘Good morning’ like nothing is wrong—like she didn’t wilfully misuse magic and almost kill herself in the process before falling into a dead faint and landing in Hecate’s trembling arms—that truly breaks her.

‘“Good morning”,’ Hecate mumbles under her breath, fingers twitching and clawing at the knee of her dress. ‘ _Honestly_. Is that all you have to say for yourself?’ she demands, glaring at Pippa and trying not to blow steam out of her ears. ‘Not “I’m sorry for misusing my magic in one of the most reckless, thoughtless ways I could manage,” or “I’m sorry for appearing in the middle of our living room and then _fainting_ because I thought using the Craft to transfer over _kingdoms_ was a good idea”?’ She blinks at Pippa, tries to swallow down the bile rising in her throat, her stomach still twisted up in knots. ‘How could you, Pippa? _’ How could you do this to me_? she wants to know, what she’s done to make Pippa scare her like that.

Pippa pouts, just a little, her hand falling to Morgana’s head for comfort. ‘Alright, I admit, I may have overstretched myself a little, but it’s obviously nothing a good night sleep couldn’t fix. I don’t see wh—’

‘It’s been three days, Pippa!’ Hecate snaps, hands shaking fiercely and so worked up she can barely look at Pippa. ‘You’ve been asleep for _three days._ ’

‘ _Oh,_ ’ Pippa breathes out softly, eyes wide and blinking fast, before falling silent. She stares down at the woollen blanket, twists a stray whorl between her fingertips.

‘You could have _died_ ,’ Hecate stresses, still unable to fathom how a birthday or a present or just Hecate herself could be worth going to such lengths. ‘How could you be so foolish?’

The weight of Hecate’s words sits heavy on both their shoulders.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ Pippa mumbles after some time, nibbling on her bottom lip; raises her chin to look at Hecate with bright, wet eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

Hecate sighs deeply, anger ebbing away to leave worry and concern and care. Sits down beside Pippa, reaches out to pat the top of her hand, and works on an apology of her own.

‘No, it’s—’ part of her wants to say _it’s not your fault,_ except it is: it’s entirely Pippa fault, to think coming here was a good idea, that something as silly as a birthday could be this important, to make Hecate worry like that. But she can’t have Pippa worrying over her either, because in the end, ‘I’m just glad you’re okay.’ But even that might not be true, Hecate remembers; even if Pippa is awake and alert, she might still be hurt. ‘How are you feeling?’

Pippa hums, frowning as she takes stock of herself. ‘Famished,’ she says after a span, beaming bright as she draws back the covers. ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.’

Hecate laughs, low and wet, relief flooding through her again. Begs off to the kitchen as Pippa starts undressing as she walks over to her closet. Darts out of the room before her ridiculous, giddy, _relieved_ state makes her do something stupid like stay and watch.

*

But Pippa’s recovery does not end with a full stomach, and she naps on and off for the remainder of the day and the next, only truly rising from bed with a few hours to spare before sunset.

Hecate keeps herself busy, between accessing Pippa and her magic every time she wakes, by carving and charming and sending her crafts not village as they prepare for Samhain. She wonders if she ought to avoid leaving Pippa alone for the night, though she knows just how strange it would seem for a caster to not even appear during the coming celebration.

She should have known Pippa would have another idea entirely.

‘When do we leave?’ she asks, still warm and soft from sleep, yawning as she walks towards the kitchen and the faint hum of the Hecate’s magic. ‘For the village tonight,’ she adds when Hecate looks up from cleaning to stare at her blankly. ‘I can’t wait, it’s going to be wonderful!’

‘Actually, I had thought you should stay here and rest.’

Pippa shakes her head vigorous. ‘No, I want to come,’ she assures Hecate with a smile as bright as normal, even if her face is still a little pale.

It gives Hecate just enough cause for pause, before asking, ‘If you think you’re able?’

‘I am,’ Pippa promises, eyes wide and imploring. ‘Please let me come?’ she begs, and Hecate can’t say no.

‘Then you’d best get ready, we’ll leave soon,’ she says, already packing up her things.

Pippa nods sharply and dashes off to bathe. Walks into Hecate’s room some time later, bright and shining and clad in the same deep pink dress she wore here from the castle, as Hecate finishes colouring her lips a warm red to offset the black of her tightly laced dress. She smiles into the mirror, watching as Hecate lets her hair down: a cascade of curls tumbling over her shoulders.

Hecate looks herself over, smiling with satisfaction, before turning to Pippa to ask if she’s ready to leave. Her words catch in her throat when Pippa reaches out to twirl a ringlet around her finger. A shiver runs up Hecate’s spine, and her eyes almost flutter shut.

‘You look wonderful,’ Pippa says softly, and Hecate’s eyes fly open.

She blushes, turns away from Pippa hide her burning cheeks, stammering out a garbled, ‘Thank you.’ She steps away, slipping her cloak over her shoulders and bidding Pippa do the same for herself. ‘Wouldn’t want you catching a chill,’ she says, when she over her shoulder, across the room, to find Pippa looking at her curiously. Pippa blinks, then smiles and nods, walking out of Hecate’s room with a swish of her hair; wrapping a warm, thick white coat around her shoulders before stepping out of the cottage and making the trek down to the village by Hecate’s side. 

*

Sundown comes and the festivities burn long into the night. Pippa dashes from fire to fire and the fanfare in between, smiling joyous and bright. The last patches of missing colour return to her cheeks as she breathes in the magic humming in the air as the night air reddens the tip of her nose.

Hecate begins to fall behind Pippa’s gradually quickening pace, forever a little out of place in a crowd even if she’s comfortable with the people of which it’s comprised. She’s content to let Pippa lead the way and lag a little behind to keep a watchful eye on her.

There’s a foot or more between them when Pippa notices an apple bobbing crate in the middle of a crowd.

Pippa jumps for joy, almost squeaking with delight, and turns behind her; grabs Hecate’s hand, pulls her close, and races towards the group. Keeps ahold while they watch familiar faces dunk themselves under the water in search of fruit.

Their fingers stay intertwined for the rest of the night, palms pressed together as they keep move through the crowds towards the open air of the clearing that will take them home.

It’s far from the first time they’ve held hand—during casting, helping each other the garden, sporadic moments when they’re in forest or the cottage or the village and one of them trips until a steady hand keeps them upright—but this doesn’t feel like something born from necessity alone: this feels like Pippa has her palm in Hecate’s just to hold her close, like she had in the city.

The reach the end of the festival corridor and out into the clearing that lets to their home; Pippa’s grip remains, though the crowds have gone.

Hecate’s skin itches and her stomach churns, as she pushes away the ridiculous idea that Pippa would hold her hand for sentimental reasons, but can’t push away the hope of _‘But what if she did…’_ Because she can’t keep lying to herself—can’t keep ignoring her dreams or the wanderings of her waking mind or the fact that her home feels like it’s missing something when Pippa isn’t there, not to mention the plethora of tiny, inconsequent things about Pippa that she’s spent far too long pretending don’t matter near so much as they do—not after the week she’s had, with Pippa’s antics and the way Hecate’s heart has nearly stopped when she thought she might have lost her friend and the way she can’t seem to stop wondering just how much she means to Pippa, hoping that maybe it isn’t just her…

She’s in love with Pippa.

And she hates herself for it. Because Pippa should be able to trust Hecate not to take advantage, to keep her emotions in check and not confuse one thing with something else entirely and want something from Pippa that she can’t possibly want for herself.

But Pippa can’t trust her. Because the way Pippa looks as she gushes about how beautiful the lights were in the village while they walk side by side in the moonlight make Hecate’s heart race as the desperate want to kiss Pippa’s beautiful mouth almost overwhelms her.

She stumbles, for just a moment, almost falling before she gets her racing thoughts back under control. Pretends as if nothing has happened despite Pippa’s quizzical, slightly confused look when she reclaims her hand and walks on. Keeps her thoughts to herself as they continue home, only daring to offer the occasional hum of agreement as Pippa continues chattering, while she wonders what she ought to do.

Because this can’t continue. Hecate knows that. Pippa deserves better.

She resolves to _be_ better, as the welcome sight of their cottage draws closer and closer, finally saying something as Pippa opens the garden gate.

‘You should go,’ she says, the first thing either of them have said for five minutes. She hides her shaking hands in her cloak pockets as she adds, ‘Tomorrow.’

‘But I have a more few days here,’ Pippa replies over her shoulder, pausing with the gate half open. ‘I’m not due home till the end of the week.’

‘No, I mean—’ Hecate balls her hands into fists, nails pressing tight into her palms; she can still remember the feel of Pippa’s hand in hers, and squeezes harder. ‘Leave for the forgotten city. You need to find another teacher.’

‘What, why?’ Pippa exclaims, stepping towards Hecate, her brow furrowed deep with disbelief. Hecate looks away as Pippa races to the wrong conclusion. ‘If this is about transferring, you don’t need to worry—I’ll never do anything like that again, you have my word,’ she promises, her voice strained with just a touch of panic. ‘Unless…’ she trails off, nibbling on her bottom lip. ‘Unless you don’t want me to learn with you anymore?’

‘No, it’s not that,’ Hecate reassures her, looking back at Pippa, because it’s nothing she’s done. It’s just, ‘You’ll be better off with someone else.’

Pippa glares at her in the moonlight, panic and worry melting into something else entirely. ‘Who are you to decide that?’ she snaps, her shoulders square and shaking slightly. ‘I’m the only one who gets to decide what’s best for me.’

Hecate can hear the echo of an oft-repeated argument Pippa has been fighting for years and sighs. ‘Sorry, no. That isn’t what I meant.’

‘Then what? What did you mean,’ she demands, and Hecate doesn’t say anything. ‘Because I want to stay,’ she says, _decrees_ , and Hecate curses just how _headstrong_ Pippa can be when she puts her mind to it.

‘You shouldn’t.’ _You shouldn’t want me._ ‘You can’t—’

‘Why?’ she demands, her voice raised and thick with emotion. ‘Why can’t I,’ she presses, her eyes piercing Hecate as if she _knows_ —except she can’t, how could she? Why _would_ she—and Hecate doesn’t know what to say.

‘Pippa, please—’ she starts, _Please don’t make me say it_.

‘Don’t you want me here?’

‘Of course I want you, I—'

‘Then stop pushing me away!’ Pippa shouts, and a bright light flashes thought the clearing.

Hecate can feel the crack that follows reverberate in her teeth and she snaps towards the oak tree by the house, still standing strong but smoking and tingling with the lingering present of lighting. Gapes for a moment, as the tree threatens to catch alight, before gathering her wits and dousing flames before they can breathe.

She stares at the very lightly smouldering tree, wide-eyed and terrified, as she tastes magic in the air; turns towards Pippa—flushed and near tears and trembling like a leaf; blinking at the remains of her uncontrolled power—and can barely believe what’s right in front of her eyes.

‘Please don’t make me go,’ Pippa begs softly, and Hecate feels her heart break, beat so hard it burst right open in her chest. ‘I don’t want anyone else, Hecate, I never did. You must know I—’ she breaks off, finally looks Hecate with tear-bright eyes full of something else deep and terrifying and _wonderful_ as she admits, ‘It’s always been you.’

Hecate’s legs almost give out under the crushing realisation that she was never suffering through this alone.

She reaches out to steady herself, pulls Pippa close and kisses her, soft and sweet. Pippa freezes against her, and Hecate panics, for a moment—terrified that she’s misunderstood again, ruined things before they’ve begun—then Pippa’s mouth turns ravenous beneath hers.

It’s all Hecate can do to keep herself upright, Pippa’s hands on her hips and pinching at her waist and raking through her hair; it leaves Hecate gasps, dizzy, moaning against Pippa’s lips, pressed tight like they’ve been dreaming of for so long, while moonbeams shine down around them.

*

Pippa appears on her doorstep a fortnight later, an owl on her shoulder and a bag in her hand and a smile on her pretty pink lips that promises forever, and Hecate invites her inside for the last time, closing the door to their home behind her.


End file.
